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Photo by Erich Lessing

ON THE COVER: Wisdom personified, standing at King David’s right, clutches a volume beneath her arm as Prophecy points to David’s open book, in this 14th-century Byzantine manuscript illumination. Long-overshadowed by the biblical genres of the Law and the Prophets, the Hebrew Bible’s Wisdom literature—particularly the books of Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes (the latter two attributed to King David’s son, Solomon)—is now receiving increased attention from scholars. Their work, as Katharine Dell explains in “Wisdom Literature Makes a Comeback: Pursuing the Good Life,” highlights the similarities between the experience-based insights of Wisdom literature and the modern quest for meaning in life.